CVE-2023-27483 is a medium-severity (CVSS 5.9) Improper Input Validation vulnerability in github.com/crossplane/crossplane-runtime. A fix is available for github.com/crossplane/crossplane-runtime — see the affected versions and patch details below.
fieldpath's Paved.SetValue allows growing arrays up to arbitrary sizes in crossplane-runtime
Exploitation Status
No confirmed exploitation observed yet
- CISA’s own triage has not observed active exploitation or public proof-of-concept code for this CVE as of its last assessment.
Exploitation and automatability from CISA’s SSVC triage for CVE-2023-27483.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
EPSS (Exploit Prediction Scoring System) is a daily probability model maintained by FIRST.org. It estimates the likelihood a CVE will be exploited in production environments within the next 30 days, derived from real-world threat intelligence signals.
How urgent is this, really
CVE-2023-27483 plotted by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). The shaded corner — EPSS 50%+ and CVSS 7.0+ — is where this CVE doesn't sit, though severity or exploitability alone can still warrant action.
Where this sits among everything scored
Of 379,145 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the < 10% band (highlighted). Real counts from FIRST.org, not a sample — log-scaled since the landscape is heavily right-skewed.
Real-World Exposure
github.com/crossplane/crossplane-runtime🐹github.com/crossplane/crossplane-runtimeReal-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects Go packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.
Description
crossplane-runtime is a set of go libraries used to build Kubernetes controllers in Crossplane and its related stacks. An out of memory panic vulnerability has been discovered in affected versions. Applications that use the Paved type's SetValue method with user provided input without proper validation might use excessive amounts of memory and cause an out of memory panic. In the fieldpath package, the Paved.SetValue method sets a value on the Paved object according to the provided path, without any validation. This allows setting values in slices at any provided index, which grows the target array up to the requested index, the index is currently capped at max uint32 (4294967295) given how indexes are parsed, but that is still an unnecessarily large value. If callers are not validating paths' indexes on their own, which most probably are not going to do, given that the input is parsed directly in the SetValue method, this could allow users to consume arbitrary amounts of memory. Applications that do not use the Paved type's SetValue method are not affected. This issue has been addressed in versions 0.16.1 and 0.19.2. Users are advised to upgrade. Users unable to upgrade can parse and validate the path before passing it to the SetValue method of the Paved type, constraining the index size as deemed appropriate.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐹Go | github.com/crossplane/crossplane-runtime | ≥ 0.17.0&&< 0.19.2 | 0.19.2go get github.com/crossplane/crossplane-runtime@v0.19.2 |
| 🐹Go | github.com/crossplane/crossplane-runtime | ≥ 0.6.0&&< 0.16.1 | 0.16.1go get github.com/crossplane/crossplane-runtime@v0.16.1 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for github.com/crossplane/crossplane-runtime, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update github.com/crossplane/crossplane-runtime to 0.19.2 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2023-27483 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
If you can't upgrade right away: gate or disable the affected feature, validate untrusted input at the boundary, and avoid passing attacker-controlled data into the vulnerable path. O3's runtime protection blocks exploitation in production as an interim safeguard until the upgrade lands.
How O3 protects you
O3 Security's impact-aware SCA analyses which vulnerable code paths your application actually calls, so a match like CVE-2023-27483 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to CVE-2023-27483. Runtime protection reduces exposure until a permanent patch is applied and verified — it complements patching, it doesn't replace it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2023-27483 in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds CVE-2023-27483 across Go dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.